Alexandra ‘Sandy’ Mason

Sandy Mason

Graveside inurnment services for Alexandra Mason, 80, Lawrence, will be held at Pioneer Cemetery on the University of Kansas campus in July (date and time to be announced). Ms. Mason died Friday, June 24, 2011, at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.
She was born March 17, 1931, in Greenfield, Mass., the daughter of Herbert E. and Anna E. Thorndike Mason.
Ms. Mason graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1952 with an AB in Greek. She earned her Masters of Library Sciences in 1955 from the Carnegie Library School, and also did post-graduate work at Durham University in Durham, England and the famed Bodleian Library at Oxford University in Oxford, England.
Highlights of her career include: 1975-1999: Head of Special Collections (Rare Books) for Spencer Research Library; Recipient of the very first Chancellor’s Distinguished Librarianship Award in 1990; Inductee into the University of Kansas Women’s Hall of Fame in 1980; Reference librarian for the World Book Encyclopedia in Chicago for one year before coming to Lawrence in 1957. Mason was a member of the KU graduate faculty and spent time as a Courtesy Professor of English and also served as a mentor in the University Scholars program.
Ms. Mason was the co-author or author of 4 books, 17 articles, and over a dozen scholarly papers. After 42 wonderful years with the University of Kansas, Mason retired in 1999 and The Rubenstein/Mason Fund for the Library was named partially in her honor. A quote about Mason from the KU Women’s Hall of Fame website says: “She has ever been an active and highly effective participant in many good and moral causes, for example, women’s rights and intellectual freedom… she simply lived her beliefs and convinced others of their rectitude by her example.”
She is survived by her lifetime friend, Ann Hyde and a brother, E. Eugene Mason, Greenfield, Mass. She was preceded in death by three sisters, Pauline, Edith, and Helen.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Rubenstein/Mason Fund for the Spencer Research Library, the Lawrence Humane Society, or Mt. Holyoke College, sent in care of Rumsey-Yost Funeral Home & Crematory, 601 Indiana, Lawrence, KS 66044.
Online condolences may be sent at www.rumsey-yost.com.